Diary of the 75G planted tank.... New pics 6/26/06

[rich311k]

Nice fish Wolf. I love that pleco.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

For that pleco, the pics aren't the best yet, but can anyone tell if it's a male? I'm thinking it is. The other 3 have short whiskers around the lip, but this one they are much longer, and also has like a row starting from the lip going towards the forehead. He's also more aggressive than the other 3. And yes, they do look great. The lfs here is getting some pretty good quality fish now.

I can't believe the number of posts. Over 300 posts, and over 9.1k views. Love it.

I got an email response from the breeder I'll be getting my angels from. For the 75G, his recommendation is to get 7 or 9 angels for my tank. his main reasoning is to spread out any aggressiveness in the tank between the angels, as well as with the rams. He said I should be fine. And also, since they will be young angels, will have a better chance of getting along when older, as they will have been with each other for so long. He said starting with a few, and adding more later, will only cause problems. Any comments on this?

 

[Lonewolfblue]

One more addition to the tank. I bought 2 Singapore Shrimp. Anyone have any info on them? When I Googled them, all I came up with is an assortment of dishes made with singapore shrimp, lol. All I need is a delecasy in my tank, lol....

Are these commonly called wood shrimp?

 

[kaz]

http://www.petshrimp.com/bambooshrimp.html

 

[Lonewolfblue]

The petco here sells bamboo shrimp, and these shrimp are similar, just bigger and a little darker. A lot of similarities though. Not sure if they are the exact same.

 

[Jchillin]

At LWB's request, the now famous 75g tank log is now in the Planted aquaria forum.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Well, my tank is looking pretty bad, lol. Algae mess, and plants looking not so hot. But in my 26G, all's looking so great. Don't know why, lol.

I made a change on all my tanks. I changed my lighting time from almost 14 hours to just 10 hours on. 11am to 9pm. And still only at 260W on my 75G, with 130W actinics. So we'll see if that makes any difference.

 

[GlitcH]

Looking forward to more pics LWB.........any of the shrimp yet?

So you got 130w actinics but what's the K on the other 130?
6400?
Or are you saying that you have both strips running......with a total of 390w?

Did you ever get that LaMotte NO3 kit that travis suggested?

 

[Friendly]

Those are some beautiful pictures of your fish and plants Lonewolfblue. I especially like the pics of your rams (which are absolutely stunning!). I'm also looking forward to some pics of your new shrimp.

Speaking of shrimp, have you ever thought of getting some amano shrimps? I think they would help with your stag horn algae problem. I am also fighting stag horn (yours looks identical to mine) and my 12 amanos love to eat the stuff! They are not a solution to my problem but they have helped immensely in controlling it. I would hate to see your tank get over run with stag horn/hair algae.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Looking forward to more pics LWB.........any of the shrimp yet?

So you got 130w actinics but what's the K on the other 130?
6400?
Or are you saying that you have both strips running......with a total of 390w?

Did you ever get that LaMotte NO3 kit that travis suggested?

The shrimp didn't make it. Not sure why, but they seemed to be doing good for a day, then were motionless. Not sure if it's due to the ph level or not.

As for the lights, I have 130W actinic, 130W 6400k, and 260W 12000k. But I shortened my time from almost 14 hours on to just 10 hours on.

Haven't got the LaMotte kits yet.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Well, not sure if it's good news or bad news. In my 75G, most of the fish were gasping for air this morning, so I went into emergency mode and added a bubble stone. Now I have it set so the bubble stone is only active when the main lights are out and moonlights on. So I guess I'm getting so many plants that the O2 is being used up. It's only a small 1 1/2" bubble stone, do you think it will be enough, or should I put in my 12" bubble wand? The fish seem to be staying back low in the tank again.

 

[GlitcH]

Hmmm why would it be good news?

I would put in the wand........can't hurt right.......I'd wanna do all I could......instead of waking up one morning to see dead fish instead of just gasping fish.

I had noticed that some ........not all.....and I don't even think the majority say that you should have air stones running at night.

I guess it all depends on how heavily planted the tank is.

 

[Purrbox]

Actually it's a matter of how heavily planted AND how heavily stocked the tank is. The water can only absorb so much O2 during the day, and at night both the plants and fish use O2. This situation can be encountered when there aren't enough fast growing plants to fully saturate the water and/or when the demand for O2 at night exceeds the amount that can saturate the water during the day.

 

[GlitcH]

Purrbox..........can I borrow your brain for a couple months

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Well, good news in that the plants are healthy, which means at night, they will taking O2. But for fish, it's not a real good idea, as they need O2 also. Will see how things go, and might change it to a bubble wand. But the fish reacted pretty quickly to the adding of the bubble stone, so hopefully that does the trick.

 

[GlitcH]

Good to hear that all is well.

Just curious........how quick is "pretty quickly"?

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Withing 5 minutes, they were no longer gasping for air.

I decided not to do the plant pulling and bleaching. Seems too much of a job. Will wait til I decide to pull all the plants and replace with new. But I did pull some of the vals out. Was just getting too thick. Was a job just doing that, lol.

When I was pulling the vals, and pulled the anacharis and replanted the stems, everytime I disturbed the Eco, bubbles would come up. Is that normal?

 

[GlitcH]

Five mins huh.......that is pretty quick.

Is that the first you've seen of bubbles from the eco?
I'm getting that too.
I just figured it was cuz my tank is so new.

Ya I don't blame ya one bit ......I wouldn't want to be bleaching all my plants ......and I've got less than half of what you have.
But it must be pretty bad if your thinkin of buying new plants.....that sux man.
I feel for ya......they ain't cheap.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Five mins huh.......that is pretty quick.

Is that the first you've seen of bubbles from the eco?
I'm getting that too.
I just figured it was cuz my tank is so new.

Ya I don't blame ya one bit ......I wouldn't want to be bleaching all my plants ......and I've got less than half of what you have.
But it must be pretty bad if your thinkin of buying new plants.....that sux man.
I feel for ya......they ain't cheap.

Yup, 5 minutes.

I'm thinking because the water is so saturated with O2 at times, it builds up underneath. If that is the case, then it would be good since anaerobic bacteria can't live where there's lots of O2, right? Hopefully I'm correct on this.

Well, I got more pics for everyone. After my cleanup, I took a few more pics for you all to see.

Left side of tank, still kind of a mess:

Right side of tank, where I spent most of my time:

Left side again. Cleaned up the foreground a bit:

Left side again. You can see I got a lot of the staghorn algae out of the foreground:

Kind of a bad shot of the right side. Too much of an angle:

Pulled my dwarf hairgrass, as it was too full of algae. Saved a few strands, going to see if they will spread:

L. repens pulled out, and cut off roots, and replanted stems. Will see how they do:

Pulled the nasty anacharis out and replanted the best stems from them. They were a spiders web of algae. Can also see the prefilter I made for my XP3 intake. It's helping keep a lot of the bigger crud out of my filter intake.

 

[GlitcH]

looks empty in there now

A prefilter huh...someone was just recomending that to me in another thread.
Sounds like a good idea......except I wonder how messy it gets when you pull it off to clean it.